Saturday, February 2, 2008

Now that i have all the lights hooked up i installed the tach and speedo. cant wait to see them move. The tach is from tinytach.com. $60 digital tach that updates every .5 seconds. the speedo is a garelli speedo from 1977mopeds.com. It's CEV so it wont be accurate since its designed for 16 in rims. Once i get used to it ill do the math in my head cause it just looks just too damn cool.The Decals

I'm planning on redoing the tank and plastics after the rally, it turned out ok but i just didnt have a chance to do what i really wanted. so for now i ordered these decals online, i made them a little too big and thick but for 20$ was worth. When i get the time im going to get the tank powdercoated and airbrushed along with the panels.

Thursday, January 31, 2008

As you can plainly see this bike is now a rice rocket. but seriously it looks awesome. especially up at the dash, i now have 6 super bright led accent lights, a led tail light and soon a superbright 30 led headlight. more soon! i will be showing it off live tonight at www.dontcallitascooter.tv check it out!

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Its finally HERE! My friend from Flordia, Richard Battaglia AKA Ragstrecher hooked me up with this sweet custom piece of art. He made the seatpan out of black PVC so its much lighter than the stock seat and used closed cell foam and marine vinyl. omg im in love. anyway, install went great, just bolted right on. He does custom work so hit him up if you want that extra special touch for your custom build.

I also had a magneto cover insert from a Magnum LTD that had chipped and faded over time, i repainted it and inserted it into a chrome magneto cover. turned out great, nice little extra touch.

Here you can see it all together. oh man oh man i want to ride it so bad.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

I got my 5 star rims back from motomaticmopeds! The rims were powdercoated green and the hubs black. Nate also replaced the bearings on both rims with custom sealed bearings. I marked off the inside of the 5 star, took measurements, took a pic and made the template for the plastic inserts in photoshop.

Here is what it looks like with the paper template.

Then i just made a cardboard template, cut the plastic ones out of a trashbin, painted them and voila!

Sunday, January 27, 2008

So i am putting together a 50cc magnum for the "Flock Yeah" Latebirds Rally in LA. It begins on Febuary 15th so i have like 2 weeks to build this bike! It is a Puch Magnum MKII frame that fell into my hands a while back. Engine was toast and the frame was rusty. I have stripped the whole thing down, painted, cleaned and am putting a brand new motor on it.

I will be updating this blog, and also broadcasting live on www.dontcallitascooter.tv on thursday nights and weekends. If you go to that site you can chat with me and others, ask questions, and broadcast live along side me. If you miss the live episode dont worry, they replay all day and night once recorded.

The whole goal of this bike is to be a vintageish tribute to puch mopeds. im going all black green and white, will be focusing on a cafe racer look with modern influence. Here is a list of the parts that are being used on this bike.

So here is a pic to show you the goal of what i am going for. lets hope the real thing turns out even cooler.

The Beginning

Here is how the Magnum started out. My friend Jason Olivas from Scottsdale aquired this bad boy. did some paint right around the time i got a sweet ass cherry maxi. I knew that this bike had potential and i have always wanted a magnum so i traded Jason straight up for my maxi.The Batteries

I started off my modifying the frame to accomodate two 7amp batteries. Because I am using HPI internal rotor ignition, i do not have any power for lights. Well you can buy a lighting coil for the HPI but its only 10watts so its not even worth it.

Instead i decided to go with rechargeable batteries and i can have all the light i desire. they go underneath the side covers (had to cut them a little) and are strapped to some brackets i welded on.The Plastics

The kit i am using is a 50cc reedvalve athena cylinder, with a ported exhaust and 4 petal reed intake. As you can see this kit has MONSTER transfer ports which made for an interesting port job. This kit is supposed to be the most powerful 50cc kit (thats available) for puch. we shall see.The Case

I then portmatched the cases using your average dremel and sand paper method. All you have to do is put the base gasket on the case, mark the areas that need to be taken out, dremel the shit out of it, sand it down and viola! also dont forget to widen the oil port for the magneto side bearing!The Main Gear

Now, because i am using an HPI internal rotor ignition i needed to lighten other parts of my motor. The HPI magnet is a small block of aluminum that weighs only a couple ounces compared to a stock magneto which weighs like 5 lbs. Lots of people do serious clutch damage and get heavy vibration because of the lack of balance in the weight inside the motor. So i had to lighten the main gear by removing 3 spokes with an angle grinder. i messed up a little but it was my first time doing this.

The Clutch

I also did a similar process to the clutch. This is a stock 3 shoe clutch that came in the supermaxi motor. I removed a couple grams of weight from each clutch arm using an angle grinder. Since taking this picture i have installed aftermarket orange clutch springs provided by Chris Paz of the Creatures. They are much stiffer springs that can allow you to tune your clutch to engage at even higher rpms. I could have taken off more meat from the clutch arms but once again this is my first time and i was conservative.

As you can see in the video i made a custom dash for the bike. Installed 3 switches, red for headlight/tail light, silver for kills switch and green for all the LED accent lighting this bike will get. I used LED lights for the bolt holes on the headlight fairing and the frame and engine will be getting some super bright green LEDS as well. Only half finished with this but im not super happy with the results. I might get rid of the dash and do handlebar switches. oh yeah i am also using a Digital Tachometer which updates every .5 seconds purchased from Tiny Tach.

The Frame Comes Together

The Wiring Part 2

So i got bored and put 4 of the 6 LEDS in. Just gonna put 2 right up front inside the headlight fairing so i can read the tachometer and speedometer at night. well mostly the tachometer the speed will have its own light hopefully. anyway, the photo doesnt do it justice. but its blurry and thats good. thats what it will look like when i pass you =P

Here is the progress as of January 27th. Its all getting put on the bike. Raining cats and dogs outside so i have moved the project indoors. Currently i am waiting on the following things to finish this project

Custom seat from ragstrecherCustom 5 star rims from MotoMaticMopedsHPI ignition but i might go with tomos CDIJolly Moto Pipe but i might go with a homoetoh yeah and some more free time

Will make sure to keep you updated as it comes a long. still got a few surprises for you guys.